It is know that, even before the industrial revolution, packing and product protection was a serious problem, solved more or less successfully.
Currently, packing is a very important industrial sector, without which safe and efficient local and international trade would not be possible.
However, under the current technical conditions and in certain specific sectors, there are severe deficiencies concerning packing, while in other sectors which develop new products, innovative packing systems are in constant demand.
The main shortcomings of current packing techniques are described below:
1) The use of packing material still is a rather unimportant topic worldwide, stimulating the waste of raw materials and forest resources, such as wood.
2) In sectors such as the industries manufacturing medical equipment, measurement instruments, electronic equipment, laboratory equipment, computers, etc., almost all packing materials are made of wood, which requires such factories to have affiliates designing and manufacturing such packing materials. These packing materials are used for transport between manufacturer and user, and then are destroyed, since their construction is traditional, using nails as the main connection element between the wooden components, which makes the boxes difficult to open and preventing their repeated use in good conditions for a new shipment.
3) In many cases, although there are good packing systems, there are problems in their storage when they are not in use, i.e. systems that can be reused require large areas for their storage when assembled and empty; this significantly increases the operational costs of the sector.
4) In the packing and transportation of works and objects of art, as well as in the sector of decorative and antique objects, the problem is more complex, since art objects are not massively produced elements under dimension and shape standards. The demand for packing materials in this sector requires that each work or object be packed under individual specifications, creating very complex and costly problems, such as manufacture of special packing for each work or object; demand for space for the storage of boxes inside or outside museums and galleries while the works are on display; if there is no space inside these institutions, it must be purchased outside, and one must pay for transport etc. All this is due to the fact that there are no economic modular packing systems on the market, which can be easily assembled, disassembled, expanded in either direction, so as to adapt to various dimensions, and be reusable.
Various attempts have been made to construct a modular packing crate. However, these systems have complex joining features, and cannot be expanded in size without strict limitations. Furthermore, these systems do not provide for a hollow container without spatial interruption by internally positioned tops and bases of intermediate receptacles within a stack of receptacles.